QuantumSphere in the News

November 10, 2005
Extreme Nano
Nano Patents Aimed At Fuel Cells

By ExtremeTech Staff

QuantumSphere, Inc., a manufacturer of nanopowders, has filed two patents related to the fuel cell and battery industry.

The first patent involves an improved method to develop air cathodes, by allowing a small R&D; facility to easily scale up to production using the same apparatus. advertisement

The second patent involves improving the gas diffusion mechanism in a fuel cell by using nano-sized metal catalysts and alloys, according to the company. The patent could apply to Zn/air, Li/air, hydrogen and direct methanol fuel cells, the company said.

“This technology allows QuantumSphere to provide customers the capability of developing and verifying cathode designs specific for their applications,” said Robert Dopp, president of DoppStein Enterprises, Inc. — a partner of QuantumSphere — in a statement.For example, a methanol fuel cell and a zinc air battery have very different power and voltage requirements, “Ratios of QuantumSphere-produced nanocatalysts can be optimized using this technology. The resulting cathodes use catalysts never tested before because the method to make small cathode samples did not exist, but also because, until recently, no one knew how to make the metallic nanopowders uniformly and in quantities large enough to test.” The patent numbers were not available at press time.